Irene of Athens

Irene
Image from "Pala d'Oro", Venice, c. 10th century
Empress of the Byzantine Empire
Reign	797–802
Predecessor	Constantine VI
Successor	Nikephoros I
Born	c. 752
Died	9 August 803 (aged 51)
Spouse	Leo IV
Issue	Constantine VI
Dynasty	Isaurian
Religion	Chalcedonian Christianity

Isaurian dynasty
Chronology
Leo III		717–741
with Constantine V as co-emperor, 720–751
Constantine V		741–775
with Leo IV as co-emperor, 751–775
Artabasdos' usurpation		741–743
Leo IV		775–780
with Constantine VI as co-emperor, 776–780
Constantine VI		780–797
under Irene as regent, 780–790, and with her as co-regent, 792–797
Irene as empress regnant		797–802
Succession
Preceded by Twenty Years' Anarchy		Followed by Nikephorian dynasty

Irene of Athens or Irene the Athenian (Greek: Εἰρήνη ἡ Ἀθηναία; c. 752 – 9 August 803 AD) is the commonly known name of Irene Sarantapechaina (Greek: Εἰρήνη Σαρανταπήχαινα), Byzantine empress regent from 797 to 802. Prior to becoming empress regent, Irene was empress consort from 775 to 780, and empress dowager and regent from 780 to 797. Her imperial rule as a female would be disputed in the West and give more perceived legitimacy to the Holy Roman Empire as the restored Roman Empire, leading to be one of the machinations that would cause the Great Schism.

Early life and rise to power

Irene was related to the noble Greek Sarantapechos family of Athens. Although she was an orphan, her uncle or cousin Constantine Sarantapechos was a patrician and was possibly strategos of the theme of Hellas at the end of the 8th century. She was brought to Constantinople by Emperor Constantine V on 1 November 768 and was married to his son Leo IV on 17 December. Although she appears to have come from a noble family, there is no clear reason why she would have been chosen as Leo's bride, leading some scholars to speculate that she was selected in a bride-show, in which eligible young women were paraded before the bridegroom until one was finally selected.

This solidus struck under Irene reports the legend BASILISSH, Basilisse.

On 14 January 771, Irene gave birth to a son, the future Constantine VI. When Constantine V died in September 775, Leo was to succeed to the throne at the age of twenty-five years. Leo, though an iconoclast, pursued a policy of moderation towards iconodules, but his policies became much harsher in August 780, when a number of courtiers were punished for icon-veneration. According to tradition, he discovered icons concealed among Irene's possessions and refused to share the marriage bed with her thereafter. Nevertheless, when Leo died on 8 September 780, Irene became regent for their nine-year-old son Constantine.

Irene was almost immediately confronted with a conspiracy that she heard was to raise to the throne Caesar Nikephoros, a half-brother of Leo IV. To overcome this challenge, she had Nikephoros and his co-conspirators ordained as priests, a status which disqualified them from ruling.

As early as 781, Irene began to seek a closer relationship with the Carolingian dynasty and the Papacy in Rome. She negotiated a marriage between her son Constantine and Rotrude, a daughter of Charlemagne by his third wife Hildegard. During this time Charlemagne was at war with the Saxons, and would later become the new king of the Franks. Irene went as far as to send an official to instruct the Frankish princess in Greek; however, Irene herself broke off the engagement in 787, against her son's wishes.

Irene next had to subdue a rebellion led by Elpidius, the strategos of Sicily, whose family was tortured and imprisoned when a fleet was sent, which succeeded in defeating the Sicilians. Elpidius fled to Africa, where he defected to the Abbasid Caliphate. After the success of Constantine V's general, Michael Lachanodrakon, who foiled an Abbasid attack on the eastern frontiers, a huge Abbasid army under Harun al-Rashid invaded Anatolia in summer 782. The strategos of the Bucellarian Theme, Tatzates, defected to the Abbasids, and Irene had to agree to pay an annual tribute of 70,000 or 90,000 dinars to the Abbasids for a three-year truce, to give them 10,000 silk garments, and to provide them with guides, provisions, and access to markets during their withdrawal.

Rule and resolution of the Iconoclasm controversy

Gold solidus of Irene, 797–802, Constantinople.

Irene's most notable act was the restoration of the veneration of icons (images of Christ or the saints). Having elected Tarasios, one of her partisans and her former secretary, to the patriarchate in 784, she summoned two church councils. The first of these, held in 786 at Constantinople, was frustrated by the opposition of the soldiers faithful to the memory of the iconoclast emperors. The second, convened at Nicaea in 787, formally revived the veneration of icons and reunited the Eastern church with that of Rome.^[1] (See Seventh Ecumenical Council.)

While this greatly improved relations with the Papacy, it did not prevent the outbreak of a war with the Franks, who took over Istria and Benevento in 788. In spite of these reverses, Irene's military efforts met with some success: in 782 her favoured courtier Staurakios subdued the Slavs of the Balkans and laid the foundations of Byzantine expansion and re-Hellenization in the area. Nevertheless, Irene was constantly harried by the Abbasids, and in 782 and 798 had to accept the terms of the respective Caliphs Al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid.

As Constantine approached maturity he began to grow restless under her autocratic sway. An attempt to free himself by force was met and crushed by the Empress, who demanded that the oath of fidelity should thenceforward be taken in her name alone. The discontent which this occasioned swelled in 790 into open resistance, and the soldiers, headed by the army of the Armeniacs, formally proclaimed Constantine VI as the sole ruler.

A hollow semblance of friendship was maintained between Constantine and Irene, whose title of empress was confirmed in 792; but the rival factions remained, and in 797 Irene, by cunning intrigues with the bishops and courtiers, organized a conspiracy on her own behalf. Constantine could only flee for aid to the provinces, but even there participants in the plot surrounded him. Seized by his attendants on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, Constantine was carried back to the palace at Constantinople. His eyes were gouged out, and he died from his wounds several days later. A solar eclipse and darkness lasting 17 days were attributed to the horror of Heaven.

Although it is often claimed that, as monarch, Irene called herself "basileus" (βασιλεύς), 'emperor', rather than "basilissa" (βασίλισσα), 'empress', in fact there are only three instances where it is known that she used the title "basileus": two legal documents in which she signed herself as "Emperor of the Romans" and a gold coin of hers found in Sicily bearing the title of "basileus". In relation to the coin, the lettering is of poor quality and the attribution to Irene may be problematic. She used the title "basilissa" in all other documents, coins, and seals.^[2]

The Carolingian Threat

While Irene was ruling in Byzantine, the Frankish King Charlemagne was growing increasingly powerful in Western Europe. Charlemagne's burgeoning Carolingian Empire threatened Irene's rule in Byzantium in numerous ways.

The growth of Charlemagne's Empire created an enormous state in Western Europe that rivaled Irene's Byzantium in size and power. Charlemagne invaded Italy early on in his reign, acquiring the Lombard crown and annexing northern Italy by 774. He also campaigned against the German Saxon tribes for more than thirty years, annexing their territory and compelling them to convert to Christianity, and defeated the Avars in Central Europe. In the Iberian Peninsula, Charlemagne's expedition against al-Andalus led to the creation of a buffer zone between Francia and the Islamic world called the "Spanish March."

Charlemagne also threatened Irene by imitating Roman Emperors in ways other than conquest. He sponsored enormous construction programs, exemplified by the building of his capital city at Aachen (in modern-day western Germany). Aachen was particularly threatening because it was inspired by the Byzantine church of San Vitale at Ravenna constructed by Emperor Justinian the Great and even included columns, mosaics, and marbles from Rome and Ravenna. Charlemagne also standardized weights and measures and was a patron of intellectual and artistic endeavors. Moreover, Charlemagne issued laws called "capitularies" in the style of a Roman Emperor.

Pope Leo III then confirmed Charlemagne's imperial ambitions. In 799, Leo was accused of adultery and perjury by opponents within the Catholic Church. He sought and gained the protection of Charlemagne, then the King of Italy, and, in return, crowned Charlemagne with an imperial crown on Christmas Day, 800. The clergy and nobles attending the ceremony proclaimed Charlemagne to have the title "Augustus," the title of the first Roman emperor. This was the most severe threat to Irene's legitimacy, as the pope had crowned another European monarch, Charlemagne, to be the heir of the Roman Emperor; this was a direct assault of Irene's role as the leader of the Byzantine Empire, which was supposedly the successor state to the Roman Empire.

Legacy

Refusing to recognize Irene's reign, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor.

Irene reigned for five years, from 797 to 802. Pope Leo III, who needed help against enemies in Rome and who saw the throne of the Byzantine Emperor as vacant (lacking a male occupant), crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor in 800. This was seen as an insult to the Eastern Roman Empire. Nevertheless, Irene is said to have endeavoured to negotiate a marriage between herself and Charlemagne, but according to Theophanes the Confessor, who alone mentions it, the scheme was frustrated by Aetios, one of her favourites.^[3]

In 802 the patricians conspired against her and placed on the throne Nikephoros, the minister of finance (logothetēs tou genikou). Irene was exiled to Lesbos and forced to support herself by spinning wool. She died the following year.

Her zeal in restoring the icons and monasteries made Theodore the Studite praise her as a saint^[4] of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but she was not canonized. Claims about her supposed canonization are mainly from Western sources.^[5] Such claims are not supported by the Menaion (the official liturgical book providing the propers of the saints of the Orthodox Church), the "Lives of Saints" by Nikodemos the Hagiorite, or any other relative book of the Orthodox Church.

Family

By her marriage to Emperor Leo IV the Khazar, Irene had only one son Constantine VI, whom she succeeded on the throne. A female relative of Irene, Theophano was chosen in 807 by Emperor Nikephoros I as the bride of his son and heir Staurakios. An unnamed female relative was married to the Bulgar ruler Telerig in 776. Irene also had a nephew.^[6]

References

1. See Alexander, et al., p. 423.
2. Liz James, "Men, Women, Eunuchs: Gender, Sex, and Power" in "A Social History of Byzantium" (J. Haldon, ed.) pp. 45,46; published 2009; ISBN 978-1-4051-3241-1
3. See Garland, p. 89, who explains that Aetios was attempting to usurp power on behalf of his brother Leo.
4. Theodori Studitae Epistulae, Volume 2 (Berlin, 1992).
5. Vita Irenes, 'La vie de l'impératrice Sainte Irène', ed. F. Halkin, Analecta Bollandiana, 106 (1988) 5–27; see also W.T. Treadgold, 'The Unpublished Saint's Life of the Empress Irene', Byzantinische Forschungen, 7 (1982) 237–51.
6. Herrin, p. 56, 70, 134.

External links

• De Imperatoribus Romanis – Constantine VI (780–797 A.D.) and Irene (797–802 A.D.)

Primary sources

• Anastasius Bibliothecarius Chronographia tripartita
• Theophanes Chronographia

Secondary sources

• The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
• Alexander, Archibald, and André Lagarde, Joseph Turmel. The Latin Church in the Middle Ages, C. Scribner's Sons, 1915.
• Barbe, Dominique. Irène de Byzance: La femme empereur, Paris, 1990.
• Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages, second ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 80, 98-99.
• Sir Steven Runciman. "The Empress Irene." Conspectus of History 1.1 (1974): 1–11.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "^{article name needed}". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Herrin, Judith (2001). Women in Purple:Rulers of Medieval Byzantium. London: Phoenix Press. ISBN 1-84212-529-X.
• Garland, Lynda (1999). Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527–1204. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-14688-7.
• Wace, Henry and William Smith, A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, J. Murray, 1882.